EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Iran is threatening to resume its uranium
enrichment effort to the point that it will be able to produce a nuclear bomb.
According to Olli Heinonen, who served until 2010 as IAEA deputy director
general, Iran will be in a position to acquire nuclear weapons within six to
eight months.
IAEA Director General
Yukiya Amano confirmed on June 10 that Iran is realizing its threat to increase
its rate of uranium enrichment, in direct defiance of the terms of the nuclear
agreement of 2015 (JCPOA).
On May 7, Tehran
threatened that if no solution was found to the problem of US sanctions, it
would ignore the restrictions on uranium enrichment placed on it by the nuclear
agreement and enrich up to 20%. Two weeks later, on May 21, Iranian Atomic
Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said the uranium enrichment
capability at the Natanz plant had increased fourfold. As a result, Iran may
soon exceed the limitation on the amount of uranium it is allowed to enrich
under the JCPOA.
Former IAEA deputy
director general Olli Heinonen recently stated, during a visit to Israel, that
he believes Iran will be in a position to acquire nuclear weapons within six to
eight months. He later clarified his remarks, explaining that he was referring
to the time needed to enrich uranium in the quantity and quality required to
produce a nuclear bomb.
Heinonen served as the
IAEA’s deputy director general and was head of its inspection department in the
last decade. He was considered a hawk on the matter of Iran’s nuclear program,
in contrast to the feeble position toward Tehran taken by the previous IAEA DG,
the Egyptian Muhammad al-Baradei.
Heinonen’s conclusion
about Iran’s proximity to the nuclear weapons threshold apparently stems from
an assessment of its capabilities in two areas: first, its uranium enrichment
capacity today versus its capabilities before the nuclear deal was signed on
July 14, 2015; and second, the progress it has made since 2003 in the
development of nuclear explosive devices in the AMAD program. That program was
intended to produce five 10-kiloton nuclear bombs (the size of the Hiroshima
bomb in WWII) which could then be fitted onto the Shahab-3 ballistic missile
warhead. This program was revealed when the Iranian nuclear archive was
smuggled out by Israel.
After 2003, the nuclear
program underwent various organizational changes in order to disguise its
characteristics. It has operated since 2011 within the framework of the SPND
organization.
According to the IAEA’s
reports on Iran from 2013-14, before the nuclear deal was signed, the uranium
enrichment plant in Natanz contained the following:
·
15,420 centrifuges from
Iran’s first IR1 design, which enriched natural uranium to about 3.5% (nuclear
fuel of power reactor grade)
·
328 IR1 centrifuges
enriching uranium from 3.5% to 20% (nuclear fuel of research reactor grade)
·
1,008 more advanced
centrifuges of the IR2m design (which apparently has twice as much enrichment
capacity as the IR1 design). These centrifuges have not yet been activated
In addition, 2,710 IR1
centrifuges were installed at the Fordow enrichment facility, of which 696 were
activated prior to the nuclear deal. They also enriched uranium from 3.5% to
20%.
It is reasonable to
assume that if Iran breaks the nuclear agreement, it will – as soon as possible
– restart all the centrifuges installed at Natanz and Fordow, as well as the
advanced IR6 and IR8 models centrifuges that were developed in recent years.
(According to Iranian experts, the enrichment capacity of IR8 is 20 times
greater than that of IR1.) Based on data published by the IAEA, it can be
roughly estimated that if Iran breaks the nuclear deal, it will be able to
enrich uranium to about 20% at the rate of about 450 kilograms per year. It
would then enrich the 20% uranium to 90% (the level of enrichment required to
produce a nuclear weapon core) in the quantity of 200 to 250 kilograms –
sufficient to produce more than 10 nuclear bombs a year.
Based on the assumption
that the time needed for Iran to restart a full-scale uranium enrichment
project is three to four months, and adding a month or two for the production of
enriched uranium cores in the form of hollow hemispheres, it can be estimated
that within half a year, Iran may have at least enough fissile material for one
core of a nuclear weapon, and perhaps even more.
The IAEA has tried to
monitor Iran’s facilities associated with the production or use of nuclear
materials, in accordance with the NPT. However, it has not been able to uncover
Iran’s secret activities in the various areas of development of a nuclear
explosive device and installation of a ballistic missile. Most of the
information gathered by the IAEA in these areas was received from Western
intelligence services.
The most significant
breakthrough in exposing the Iranian nuclear program was Israel’s Iranian
archive operation. Documents in that archive indicate that as long ago as 2003
and 2004, Iran made great progress in its nuclear effort, far beyond what the
Western intelligence services and the IAEA estimated at the time. Had the
information in the archive been exposed before the signing of the JCPOA nuclear
deal in 2015, a better agreement would have been signed.
The Iranian nuclear
archive operation and a comprehensive description of its contents were revealed
by PM Benjamin Netanyahu on April 30, 2018. From October 2018 through May 21,
2019, the Washington Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS),
headed by David Albright, presented a series of highly detailed reports on the
contents of the archive, including information about secret facilities that had
not yet been exposed. In addition to Albright and others, Heinonen was also
involved in these revelations.
Key elements of the
nuclear program were conducted at the Parchin military site, about 30
kilometers north of Tehran. The IAEA was informed in 2004 of the possibility
that the site was conducting activities related to the development of nuclear
weapons, and asked Iran to allow its inspectors to patrol it. At first, Iran
evaded the request by claiming that it wanted to maintain military field
security, as Parchin was a military base. However, in January 2005, it granted
the inspectors partial access to a few buildings on the site.
The inspectors did not
find any evidence of suspicious activity at Parchin. On their second visit
(November 2005), which also involved only a small part of the site, they took
soil samples. The IAEA’s subsequent testing of those samples did not
substantiate suspicions of nuclear activity at Parchin.
But in 2011, the IAEA
received new reports that Parchin was testing explosives related to the
development of nuclear weapons.
In May 2012, suspicious
activity was detected at Parchin through satellite photographs: the Iranians
had destroyed some of the buildings they had forbidden IAEA inspectors to visit
in 2005. Not only that: they completely razed the areas surrounding where the
buildings had stood.
It was not until
September 2015, after the signing of the nuclear deal, that Iran allowed IAEA
inspectors to revisit Parchin. Once again, the inspectors took soil samples,
and once again, the IAEA’s lab tests revealed nothing.
The samples were
reexamined in US labs, however, and found to contain a few uranium particles –
proof that Parchin had indeed seen nuclear activity.
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Raphael
Ofek, a BESA Center Research Associate, is an expert in the field of nuclear
physics and technology who served as a senior analyst in the Israeli
intelligence community.
